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/vr/ - Retro Games

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7010731 No.7010731 [Reply] [Original]

How come mega man never became as popular as mario or sonic in the west?

>> No.7010768

>>7010731
I don’t want to be that guy and say it’s too high IQ for most people, but it probably is. Mario and Sonic = run right and jump on things. Mega Man = shoot. A lot. Dodge projectiles and flying enemies. Figure out your opponent’s weakness and exploit it while being mindful of your energy levels.

And on that note, here’s an anecdote I’ve waited nearly 30 years to tell: I was once in a Walmart, hanging out in the video game section and reading the latest Nintendo Power magazine, when this woman, a total stranger, tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I could help her out with something (I’m like 10 years old here). She told me she was looking for a game to buy for her two kids, but she wasn’t sure what to get, but had narrowed it down to three titles (which now I think about it, must’ve been on sale), all NES games:

>Monster Truck Rally
>Super Tecmo Bowl
>Mega Man 4

I was a shy kid, and would be until my late teens, but in that moment I suddenly had nerves of steel. It was though the president of Capcom himself had appointed me the official ambassador of Mega Man, and I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity to proselytize. But I had to play it cool. I asked her if her kids like sports.
>”One of them plays basketball.”
What about action, I asked.
>”They’re big on action movies in my house, but...”
I pointed to Mega Man 4, said then they’ll both like this one.
>”This? Is it fun?”
Oh yeah. It’s totally awesome.
>”It’s not too violent, is it?”
I kept a straight face, but on the inside I was grinning ear to ear. *Of course* Mega Man is violent, otherwise it wouldn’t be an action game, would it? Oh, but he’s not violent against humans. So I sold her a little white lie and said it wasn’t violent at all.

She smiled and thanked me, and I went home that day feeling like a million bucks because I got to help a stranger out AND possibly made some new Mega Man fans out of kids who were my age.

>> No.7010821

>>7010768
They probably resent you for putting them through mega man 4. They were tecmo bowl kids.

>> No.7010870

>>7010821
Maybe. But as a diehard Mega Man fan, I had to be honest with the lady. That was the game I thought was the most fun of the three.

>> No.7010892

>>7010731
You're downplaying its popularity. Mega Man might've not been as big as those two, but it was still popular as fuck back in its heyday.

>> No.7010898

not popular? are you not old enough to remember the cartoon by ruby spears? or that he was a regular on captain N?

>> No.7010972

>>7010731
It's not as cute and it doesn't really have a brainstem tier level people, even grandmas, can autopilot and get some instant satisfaction through. Not that Mario and Sonic don't GET challenging, but still. It was also pretty damn popular nonetheless.

>> No.7010979

>>7010731
It was plenty popular. But I guess being a third-party mascot not specifically affiliated with a particular hardware line made him lack the prepackaged die-hard audience of your Sonics and Marios

>> No.7010981

>>7010731
Because all they did was remake the same game over and over again except worse.

>> No.7011003

>>7010981
They had their audience: basically the same core gameplay but different levels, enemies and abilities is a valid approach.
It probably won't give you the potential of big individual hits, but you cater to a constant audience.

>> No.7011014

>>7010731

In a nutshell: it was too one-dimensional.

>> No.7011031

I would argue that Mega Man was more popular in America in the 90's than Sonic.

>> No.7011252
File: 43 KB, 220x297, cutie suzuki ringside angel.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7011252

Because Mario and Sonics names are the same worldwide, unlike Rock man/Mega Man. Also being third party capcom like someone above mantioned.

>> No.7011307

>>7010731
wtf you talking about? everyone knew megaman, everyone watched the anime in the 90s, it was awesome, but mario and sonic came bundled with the console so of course even more people knew about them

>> No.7011327

>>7010731
they shat out 7 games that were nearly identical and 5 of them were after the snes came out so people stopped giving a shit

>> No.7011534

>>7010731
It was the call of duty of platformers, released annually without any sense of quality control that ultimately made the games more samey and with less room to improve until devs and players alike were burnt out with the series

>> No.7013318
File: 2.21 MB, 2016x1512, The_definition.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7013318

>>7010731
I liked the games since the first one back in the 1900s. It was popular enough to get some cool animations and merch that I wanted.

https://youtu.be/ksq5ib1kmpM

>> No.7013321

>>7013318
still feel really jewed that the US got such shitty cover art comparatively

>> No.7013341
File: 1.44 MB, 2016x1512, Retrieve_from_the_moon.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7013341

>>7013321
The western art wasn't that bad.

https://youtu.be/HFEBaAxO7W0

>> No.7013342

>>7013318
>>7013321

I had MM2 as a kid and the fact he is holding a pistol has always confused and amused me

>> No.7013371
File: 814 KB, 2592x1944, Magazine_thread_02.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7013371

>>7013342
I thought it was a cool image back then when I first read about it. I did not expect it to be the cover of the game. It was exciting enough that a game I liked was getting a sequel. I guess maybe even then I did expect different people will have different interpretations of games. Which was even in the arcade artwork of the day too.

https://youtu.be/hqFsp0-l3es

>> No.7013374

>>7010768
reddit-tier post
kill yourself

>> No.7013382

>>7013341
You're back, what a shame. Have a pity (you), retarded faggot.

>> No.7013434

Rockman had more mainlinr platformers in the 80s and 90s than fucking Mario, what are you talking about? Also to everyone saying that Rockman is for high IQ people: I think that old Mario games are as hard

>> No.7013461

>>7013374
>reddit-tier post
How?

>> No.7013463

Megaman was pretty popular. Your standard run-and-jumpsformer will always have more appeal though, because you can sit a four year old or your grandma in front of it, and they will probably grasp the basic ideas fast enough. Megaman's a harder game.
Actually, my first memory of Megaman is playing Dr Wily's Revenge, and it being one of the hardest games I'd touched up to that point, and that just made me want to play it more. Not everyone's like that though.

>> No.7013465

>>7013434
Maybe in the final stages. Megaman has a pretty consistent difficulty throughout.

>> No.7013507

>>7013371
>>7013341
>>7013318
you have nice handwriting

>> No.7013542

>>7013465
>Megaman has a pretty consistent difficulty throughout.
Fuck no. One thing I hate about Mega Man is the difficulty spike when you enter Wily/Sigma stages. You can finish the regular robot levels in like 40 minutes and then the final stertch takes you 20000 hours because of bullshit level design. Difficulty in most Mario games smoothly transitions throughout the whole experience. And as for Sonic, his games are not challenging

>> No.7013547

>>7013542
There's often a spike but it's also usually manageable. I only really remember the first and third game being really difficult near the end.

>> No.7013549

>>7013547
2 and 4 too. Also even though it's not the whole Wily castle I'd still like to mention the final boss of 7

>> No.7013596

>>7013547
9 is bullshit. I don’t know how I ever beat it on Wii when it came out but when I tried to replay it in Dolphin a few years back I got stuck on the third Wily stage.

>> No.7013614

>>7010731
Games are harder than Mario and Sonic.

Also the music is good and when the game has soul the normalfaggots run for the hills. It's called rock man for a reason, in Japan.

>> No.7013623

>>7013461
Newfaggots are try-hards for 'toxic' behavior here. he thinks if you act normal you should leave. He probably gets the asshole out of his system here and then acts normal on redditor subs himself and is projecting.

That's 4chan for you. Full of normalfaggots and newfaggots and zoomers, he's probably all three.

>> No.7013636
File: 139 KB, 1024x768, 1598293731193.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7013636

>>7013341
>what happened?
Making 3d games is too hard. It takes entire teams years to even make decent 2d games.

Doing something like that while uneducated and for free is just unlikely. They could use the quake engine or doom or something but then it's copying and pasting and not the gameplay of non-fps games. The way he hops around and the way there are big 3d enemies and such means no one can make it. It's like expecting a metroid prime fanmade game. Surely people want to do it but even jewtendo took so long to make it they metroid skipped over n64. They have hundreds of people working on their games while it takes forever, and they are getting paid.

If someone makes one it'll be like pic related.

>> No.7013647

>>7013623
Cry me a river nigger

>> No.7013673

>>7010731
>He was known as Rockman in Asia
>Let's change his name into Megaman in the west!
It's a little thing but it's this little thing that fucking crash it.

>> No.7013690

>>7010731
It's way more popular in the west than in japan

>> No.7014517

I got filtered by Megaman games pretty hard when I was a little kid, it wasn't until I reached adulthood that I had the patience to get good at them. I spent a summer beating ALL of the 2d Megaman games.

>> No.7014531

>>7013647
Uh, you can't say the nigger word.

>> No.7014535

>>7013614
>Games are harder than Mario
Am I the only one who thinks Mario 1 is harder than all Mega Mans and Castlevanias?

>> No.7014610

>>7014535
mario 1 is a cakewalk until Level 8. Then it has certain difficult jumps that take you by surprise and hammer bros are super difficult to get by if you don't have your fire flower.

>> No.7014786

>>7014531
>Uh, you can't say the nigger word.
Then you pretty much the reddit here, kill yourself nigger.

>> No.7014872

>>7010731
Mario and Sonic were the gems of the companies that made the consoles. They presented the capabilities of the hardware, and were promoted and supported by Nintendo and Sega hard.
Mega Man is a Capcom property, a third party company so it was promoted when it did well like other popular titles, it just wasn't going to be as big as any of those.
Also Mega Man 1 was not really popular, specially in Japan where the companies cared if it sold or not, but it did better in the west so they wanted to make MM2, that was the most popular one and the rest of the series has been capitalizing in that momentum.

>> No.7014902

>>7014535
I have beaten all clasic Mega Man and Castlevania games but i can't beat Mario so i'll agree with you.

>> No.7015664

>>7014902
Mega Man and Castlevania give you health bars and a chance to recover your health while playing. In Mario you die in one hit and can only can gain one extra health which takes away abilities if you lose it. I always found Mario the most frustrating.

>> No.7015685
File: 124 KB, 358x272, 1537671365662.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7015685

>>7010981
It got better with each game until it peaked with 4. 2 is full of shitty design decisions like the Boobeam Trap and 3 was rushed and as a result its buggy as fuck. The only reason 2 and 3 are considered the best is due to nostalgia.

>> No.7016248

>>7010731
>mario
>fucking mickey mouse of videogames
>sonic
>that character who swore to kick hiss ass. and he did
>all mentioned above was a fierce war between two huge companies and consoles, so you saw they everywhere

>megaman
>just another famous character

there
it was so fucking hard wasnt it?

>> No.7016409

>>7010768
You're a good dude. Bet the enjoyed the shit out of it.

>> No.7016416

>>7010768
Cringe blog post

>> No.7016420

>>7013318
Japanese cart art for 3 is absolute dog shit

>> No.7016443

>>7010731
I had no idea Mega Man wasn't Capcom's number one franchise until very recently. Apparently it's nowhere near the top.

>> No.7016446

>>7016416
>argument status: [none]

>>7016248
Normalfaggots do tend to imprint on one thing. it's a hero worship instinct. Like begging for a king of x thing. Mario gets to be the king, the rest matter less by default. They did it with music too, obviously, even though only a retarded boomer would listen to Elvis or Jackson or etc in current year. They weren't really special anymore than that fly me to the moon jazz guy I can't recall the name of. They sort of just choose a thing to cock worship over. Mario is it when pacman used to be it, like famous jazz guy getting replaced by Elvis.

*Frank Sinatra

That's the name. Had to type fly me to the moon in le url box.

Anyway, ironically they just start things and are not really that good. You don't want to listen to them anymore, they just are the start of an age and should die. So should megaman and mario and instead let a genre be made of it, same with capeshit, make a genre, stop making new superman movies and such. But they can't, long live the king. They often wear red. Sinatra surely had a red car. Mickey is red. Mairo is red. They both have red overalls yeah? That helped.

>>7010731
People like red. Mickey is red, mario is red. Stop signs are red for this reason too. Konoa is blue, Mega Man blue, beta males thus like it. Alpha teams are red and thus win more often, they've done studies. It takes longer to process red or something. Green the fastest. Blue is almost psychologically neutral. We see gray pets as blue.

>> No.7016491

>>7010731
>Mario - mascot
>Sonic - mascot
>Mega Man - not a mascot
scotformfags win again

>> No.7016542

>>7016446
Tripniggers opinions do not matter, fuck off.

>> No.7016579

>>7016409
Thanks, I hope so.

>> No.7016850

>>7010768
based
don't care if it's all made up, it sounds cool

>> No.7016891

I tried the first one recently and don't see the appeal:
>designed around a massive health bar
>ugly mascot
>has level select so you aren't awarded new sights when you complete a level, and has no hand-crafted progression
Is it just run 'n gun for babies? Capcom have way better arcade titles like that.

>> No.7016924

>>7016891
>ugly mascot
Honestly, i really liked the US boxarts, they really oozes with the essence of soul.

>> No.7016991

>>7014531
these, we just respect.and embrace our nigger brothers

>> No.7017296

The real question to ask is why did they never do a true 3D Mega Man game. Legends is not the 2D Classic game translated to 3D.

>> No.7017361

>>7010768
go back to r/retrogaming faggot

>> No.7017450

>>7010731
Mega Man is fucking iconic. What are you on about?

>> No.7018878

>>7011031
And you'd be wrong. Sonic had 2 concurrent tv shows in America and 3 by the end of the decade and was the first vidya character in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Sonic got axed by Pokemon

>> No.7018923

>>7015664
The only thing that makes Mario harder is not even that, it’s the fact that you don’t have any continues

>> No.7019330

>>7010731
How did this thread last this long?...

Mega Man wasn't heading a console war in sake of its company. Unlike SEGA and Nintendo, Capcom had several equally important and reliable mascots and didn't need to depend on Mega Man's image to keep around. And finally, his age of gold didn't last as long as Sonic's or Mario's.

His games are bliss, but he is just not very popular.

>> No.7020642

>>7010768
youre the man.
>>7017361
you probably PS2 post on this board, kill yourself.

>> No.7020654

>>7020642
nice projection redditor
now shoo, i'm sure some tranny on r/retrogaming needs your upvotes

>> No.7020673
File: 89 KB, 292x337, 1602565839190-1-1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7020673

>>7013623
>clueless tripfaggot proves he doesn't know shit by crying over anonymous imageboard culture and should go back to plebbit
No surprise there.

>> No.7020716

They didn't promote it enough, if you didn't know about it before it looks a bit generic. I remember sonic, mario, earthworm jim posters in stores. The games were just hard to find when n64 was around but you could easily find Mystical Ninja for example. I only noticed it at first because I thought it was wierd to have 6 games in a series on 1 console. Bad boxart didn't help.

>> No.7020731

Don't know why you're specifying "in the west," because he wasn't nearly as popular as Mario or Sonic in Japan either.

>> No.7020772

>>7014786
You can't say nigger on 4chan.

>> No.7020776

>>7014786
>falling for ridiculously obvious bait in order to prove yourself as Tha Old F*g 'Round These Parts
cringe. potentially bluepilled as well.

>> No.7020835

>>7016542
>>7020673
argument status = zero

>> No.7020995

>>7020835
Current amount of people who care about a tripfag's opinion = zero.
Sad! Many such cases.

>> No.7021265

>>7014531
Sounds pretty racist to deny me my heritage.

>> No.7021310

>>7020995
>>7021265
Imagine falling for such obvious bait

>> No.7021391

>>7010768
4 negative responses vs. 3 positive
I'm gonna even this out by saying well done

>> No.7021672

>>7010731
He was, Capcom just oversaturated the market with the games and have failed to make anything innovative and compelling in over 20 years, maybe Maverick Hunter could have saved the franchise by properly bringing it into 3D.

>> No.7021676

>>7010768
i enjoyed reading this post, ignore the depressed losers

>> No.7021680

>>7013371
wtf is that Fabio dressed up like Conan?

>> No.7021767

>>7010731
Capcom kikes abandoned megaman when they made more money $$$ rereleasing resident evil for dumb dudebro americunts.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hKXF_HM2PFA

>> No.7021990
File: 343 KB, 1136x700, circlejerk trophy.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7021990

>>7021310
>trips r bad
>strawman arguments
>redditor spacing
>>imagine
>>cope
>>seethe
>>cuck
>>oof
>>yikes
>>wow just wow
>>apologist
>>cope
>>dilate
Are the above arguments or inane parroting that some npc hivemind would do? You do realize the reason people hate trips here is because they have zero individuality and can't think for themselves, right?

I'm not the one baiting and nor are they, they're just retarded and the best thing for it is to use the reminder that it's not a logical argument. It's like arguing against a strawman, but that often at least is bait because it takes more thought than simple parroted responses.

>> No.7022282

>>7010731
Because "Mega Man" sounds retarded, and I always thought he looked retarded, even as a kid. Then in High School, with the insane saturation of MM8BDM that plagued Doom MP, it made me hate it even more.

>> No.7022768

>>7010731
Good question. Starting with 2, the games are highly accessible with great art and music. 2 is like the best game on the NES Classic.

>> No.7022886

>>7018878
Mega Man had Captain N and his own show, so that's two for him as well. Otherwise, I didn't know parade floats are objective measurements of popularity.

>> No.7023062
File: 612 KB, 2592x1944, How_was_I_supposed_to_know_others_liked_Megaman_X4.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7023062

>>7013507
Thanks.

>>7016420
It does seem like it was slapped together as a last minute thing. I guess it sort of reminds me a bit like the framed portraits like https://youtu.be/diA-qF2zyRo which I was watching back then.

>>7013636
It was a fun and exciting board. They had concept arts and some preliminary 3D models. It seemed like it was moving along well, but it disappeared. I can only hope it just went dark to avoid a cease and desist order like AM2R and unlike Chrono Resurrection.

>>7021680
I think it is for IronSword which I was not interested in, but the NES, Genesis, TurboGrafx, and Lynx information got me to get that issue. There is a thread devoted to IronSword which looks like it used that image for the cover of the game too at >7019286

>> No.7023505

>>7010768
>I don’t want to be that guy and say it’s too high IQ for most people, but it probably is.
This. There are still people to this day who get filtered by MM2, the easiest in the series. The sad thing is that the series isn't even that hard. Not trying to gloat, I suck at games, I can't even finish the second stage in Ninja Gaiden. But I can beat Mega Man games just fine. A lot of modern gamers just suck at games.

>> No.7023643

>>7010870
By Mega Man 4 it needed to be move to the Super NES and had The Wily Wars be on the Super NES around the same time.

Thats why it's not as big as Mario and Sonic.

>> No.7023669

>>7010731
why do they call him rock man

>> No.7023686

>>7023669
the game's characters are all built around musical puns. so rockman's name when he was just a household robot was rock, and his sister was roll. his older brother protoman (breakman in jp) was blues.

>> No.7023687

>>7010768
Enjoy the gold, stranger. :)

>> No.7023690

>>7023686
>(breakman in jp)
sorry i don't know why i said that. he's always blues in japan.

>> No.7023691

>>7010731
Why did you post a picture of Rock Man in your thread about Mega Man?

>> No.7023692

>>7023690
Breakman was his name in disguise in MM3

>> No.7023756

>>7021990
have sex incel